On this warm summer weekend we had two start tails workshops, one Friday night and one Saturday night. And, the great news about this weekends weather was that the atmosphere was extremely clean due to a variety of recent changing weather patterns which brought clearing winds the day before....PERFECT!

Our workshop groups met at the Aperture Academy for a 20 minute orientation where we got to know one another, go over everyone's gear and discuss the techniques we'd be learning.

With sunset about 30 minutes away it was time to load up and head to our destination. We arrived quickly, unloaded and made the short hike into the open preserve space of the Almaden Valley. Everyone setup, we picked our compositions and walked through focusing in the dark, ISO and white balance settings...then began the short wait for the stars to appear.

It wasn't long before darkness set in and we were able to start capturing our first pin-point star shots. With the extraordinary clarity of the evening it also wasn't long before we could see the Milky Way with our eyes, as well as capture its beauty with our cameras!

We practiced several long exposures to capture pinpoints and dial in our aperture and shutter speed settings, then it was time for start trails! We ran a series of 5, 10 and 15 minute exposures.

Toward the end of the night Scott performed some light "writing" for us which proved to be quite entertaining and is always a fun effect to learn during night photography.

With cameras full of great night sky images and many new skills learned, it was time to pack everyone back up into ApCab and made the short trip back to Aperture Academy.

Thank you everyone who attended and until next time,

Stephen, Scott and the rest of the team at Aperture Academy!

If you'd like to join us at one of our workshops, you can find the schedule/sign up here.                                                                                     Leave & read comments below...